A diversity of assessment practices to support preschool students’ academic and developmental learning: teachers’ perspectives

Abstract

While the importance of preschool education is now widely recognized, scientific literature highlights the opposition between a developmental perspective, focused on the child and his or her overall development, and an academic perspective, more oriented towards mastery of specific skills. In the French-speaking part of Belgium, the emergence of standards for preschool education questions the balance between these two perspectives, but also the role of assessment in this context. As far as we know, few studies have focused on assessment practices of preschool teachers, particularly in the context of a reform designed to strengthen the importance of this school level in schooling. Interviews with 19 teachers show a diversity of assessment practices designed to support student learning, while raising questions about the assessment of developmental aspects and of the integration of children in the assessment process.